Last week I highlighted several of our clients who are maximizing their experiential brand marketing—specifically custom designed vehicles—through a comprehensive approach that includes social media.
Turtle Transit has produced dozens of such experiential vehicles over our 22 years. Our first real mobile marketing (as it was then called) creation was produced for Monster.com. We morphed five Land Rover Discovery’s into the Monster.com mascot. Those vehicles pulled trailers that provided computers and a satellite hook-up for job hunters on the road—this was 20 years ago and Monster.com was high-tech, literally meeting customers where they were.
From there we produced turtles out of VW bugs (which Steven Tyler from Aerosmith helped prove its strength and stability) and a rhino from a Toyota minivan, among many others.
In those early days, we sent the vehicles out into the world and received written reports about the crowds they attracted. But those efforts could only go so far—they were very localized to the people who actually saw the product. Back then, marketing campaigns could not be as integrated and wide reaching as they are today, since the explosion of social media.
It’s been rewarding to partner with clients to help them design and then realize their most creative visions, while sharing and building on what we have seen emerge over the years.
Today, we are helping clients to fully maximize comprehensive experiential marketing campaigns. In addition to developing eye-catching vehicles, whether one’s morphed into products, like the L.L.Bean Bootmobile and Planters NUTmobile, which we featured in our blog, Boosting Brand Engagement through Experiential Marketing, to ones designed to stand out in any crowd, like a Doritos bag and a Dunkin Donuts coffee cup. But it’s not just about stand-alone vehicles. Today, we are developing almost as many photo op set-ups as vehicles themselves.
Providing opportunities for audiences to truly engage with brands is critical. From multi-faceted outdoor exhibit spaces that have included virtual reality stations, photo op booths, food samples, and retail spaces, to name a few, even experiential marketing activations now work to bring together several components for a more comprehensive approach to audience engagement.
And whether you’re looking for a morphed RV or a morphed Segway, integrating other components of a comprehensive marketing strategy is critical for building brand engagement and boosting visibility—and ultimately sales. Turtle has helped clients create these opportunities and will continue to do so as approaches continue to shift, because successful marketing is never static.
– James Riseborough